Greenaway

I know so well this turfy mile,

    These clumps of sea-pink withered brown,

The breezy cliff, the awkward stile,

    The sandy path that takes me down

To crackling layers of broken slate

    Where black and flat sea-woodlice crawl

And isolated rock pools wait

    Wash from the highest tides of all.

I know the roughly blasted track

    That skirts a small and smelly bay

And over squelching bladderwrack

    Leads to the beach at Greenaway.

Down on the shingle safe at last

    I hear the slowly dragging roar

As mighty rollers mount to cast

    Small coal and seaweed on the shore,

And spurting far as it can reach

    The shooting surf comes hissing round

To heave a line along the beach

    Of cowries waiting to be found

Tide after tide by night and day

    The breakers battle with the land

And rounded smooth along the bay

    The faithful rocks protecting stand.

But in a dream the other night

    I saw this coastline from the sea

And felt the breakers plunging white

    Their weight of waters over me.

There were the stile, the turf, the shore,

    The safety line of shingle beach

With every stroke I struck the more

    The backwash sucked me out of reach.

Back into what a water-world

    Of waving weed and waiting claws?

Of writhing tentacles uncurled

    To drag me to what dreadful jaws?